Opposition to data center construction has emerged as a potent campaign issue transcending traditional partisan boundaries, with candidates from both major parties incorporating the backlash into their electoral strategies ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
A Gallup poll conducted earlier this year revealed that 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of an AI data center in their area, providing political ammunition for candidates seeking to channel voter frustration with the massive, windowless facilities that serve as the infrastructure backbone for artificial intelligence operations.
In Michigan, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed held a rally in front of a controversial data center site in Saline Township, where OpenAI and Oracle had broken ground on a large campus two months earlier. El-Sayed, who narrowly won his primary earlier this week, used the location to emphasize his campaign's focus on populist economics and reducing corporate influence in politics.
"I stand with local and state elected officials saying that we cannot approve any more of these until we have federal-level guardrails," El-Sayed told NPR, with community activists assembled beside him.
El-Sayed argued that corporate money continues to override community preferences. "Unless and until we protect local communities from the power of corrupting money and politics, we're going to continue to see projects like this get pushed on to local communities despite themselves," he told NPR.
The political calculus around data centers extends beyond Michigan. In Ohio, Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy released an "Ohioans-first data center pledge" this week, calling for new legislation and a construction moratorium until such protections pass.
"A top concern I hear from Ohioans across our state — second only to property taxes — is the accelerating pace of data center expansion," Ramaswamy said in a campaign statement. "The data center industry has badly failed to earn the trust of millions of everyday Ohioans."
Ramaswamy cited constituent complaints about rising electric bills, noise, pollution and "the absence of clearly defined economic benefits for Ohio families." His proposal included requiring data center companies to cover the power bills of nearby residents.
His Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, had released her own plan for a "conditional moratorium" on data centers last month, accompanied by criticism that "Ohio cannot trust Vivek Ramaswamy to protect communities from his fellow big-tech billionaires."
Democrat William Lawrence, running in Michigan's 7th Congressional District, said voter concerns about data centers became impossible to ignore during his campaign. Lawrence defeated two more moderate Democrats in his primary.
"It wasn't something that I expected to be part of the campaign last August because data centers weren't on our radar," Lawrence told NPR. "But there have been four data centers proposed in the district since I declared my candidacy."
In Wisconsin, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong has built her coalition partly on opposition to data center expansion. Voting ends Tuesday in Wisconsin, where recent polls show Hong favored to win the nomination.
"It's time to press control+alt+delete to put a stop to this AI data center crisis, a full moratorium until we have the new regulations we need to protect our energy costs, our economy, our environment," Hong said in a campaign video.
Peggy McCrumb, a supporter who attended a Hong campaign event, offered a direct assessment of the candidate's appeal. "I don't think anyone wants data centers, and she's the only one who stands up against it," McCrumb said, according to NPR. "So she's actually listening to what people want."
Amanda Litman, founder of Run For Something, an organization that supports Democrats seeking state and local office, said the issue defies conventional political categorization. Hong identifies as a democratic socialist, yet data center opposition resonates across ideological lines.
Litman characterized these facilities as the most concrete manifestation of public anxiety about artificial intelligence, whether those concerns involve higher energy prices or job displacement.
"We're hearing it from urban, from rural, from suburban," Litman said of data center anxiety, according to NPR. "We're hearing it in red states, blue states, purple states. It's all kinds of communities, which I think is really speaking to how visceral people feel this is coming for them."
